


Masters of the Everyday

by Drenagon



Series: Lessons Well Learnt [17]
Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings (Movies), The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Complete, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-04
Updated: 2016-06-04
Packaged: 2018-07-12 05:13:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7086778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Drenagon/pseuds/Drenagon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A snapshot of life in the household of Sigrid and Bofur, following the events of Remember.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Masters of the Everyday

**Author's Note:**

> The other day I saw an advert for an exhibition of Dutch artists which had the title 'Masters of the Everyday'. I really liked the phrase and it stuck in my mind. When I picked up this half-finished one-shot yesterday and decided to finish it up, the title seemed to be a natural fit because that's what I wanted this story to be about - these two just getting on with their lives post-War of the Ring.

Masters of the Everyday

Sigrid and Fíli exited the study of her home still discussing Sigrid’s recent patrol. The small group she had led, formed of both dwarves and a few Men who had followed their Captain down from Dale, had found signs of orcish activity not too far from Erebor. Thorin and Fíli were understandably determined to stamp that out as soon as possible.

They were distracted from their serious conversation, as they often were, by Bofur. Standing in the doorway of their main room, he was leaning against the door frame and shaking.

‘He’s doing it again, isn’t he?’ Sigrid asked her husband as tears of laughter ran down his face.

‘Oh yes,’ Bofur replied through his laughter. ‘It must come from your family, darlin’. He doesn’t get it from mine.’

‘I’ve never heard of any of mine doing it either,’ Sigrid protested. Stepping forward, she propped herself against Bofur’s back, tilting forward to look further into the room.

And there was their son. Their miracle child, as she sometimes thought of him. The one they hadn’t been sure that they’d be able to have.

Crawling backwards.

She’d never seen anything like it, truly. Perhaps the fact that he went backwards would not be so unusual if he was able to go forwards as well, but he could not. It was backwards or nothing.

Yet, despite the fact that he only ever got further away from whatever he wanted, Segur seemed entirely unconcerned. He certainly had his father’s cheerful temperament. He giggled away to himself, gave up on whatever he’d originally been after, rolled over and began playing with his feet.

Apparently deciding that he had laughed enough, Bofur walked further into the room, leaned down and gathered Segur up off the floor. He swung their lad up into the air, whirled him round, then winked at Sigrid and gently, gently threw Segur across to her. Sigrid caught him and pressed a kiss to his cheek as Segur beamed at playing his favourite game.

‘You know Bilbo winces every time he sees you doing that?’ Fíli asked her as Sigrid settled in a chair, gathering up some of the carved horses Bifur had made for Segur recently. Their child was going to be entirely spoilt by all his many uncles. Fíli reached for his nephew, but Segur ignored him in favour of galloping the horses across Sigrid’s lap.

‘Bilbo is, very occasionally, an old fusspot,’ Sigrid told him. ‘Even Dori makes no complaint about it, and you’d think he’d be the worst of everyone.’

Abandoning the toys, Segur suddenly leant forward and waved his arms wildly in Fíli’s direction, now deciding his uncle was the more interesting option.

‘Oh, you love me now, do you?’ Fíli teased, stepping forward to pick Segur up. ‘You didn’t want to know me a minute ago!’

‘He’s like his mother,’ Bofur joked. ‘Fickle. Ow!’

‘You deserved that,’ Fíli commented, tipping his armful upside down.

‘Careful, Fíli, he takes after me in other ways too,’ Sigrid warned. Remembering Sigrid’s frequent threats to be sick on Alnir if he didn’t stop spinning her around, Fíli hastily tipped Segur the right way up.

‘I should go,’ he told them reluctantly, making an exaggeratedly sad face at Segur that had their lad laughing as he tried to copy it. ‘There’s another Council meeting this afternoon. Taxes,’ he added as Sigrid gave him a questioning look. She and Bofur pulled nearly identical disgusted faces.

‘Exactly,’ Fíli agreed, ‘but Ori will have my hide if I’m not there. We _have_ to head that blowhard Dinlun off before he convinces the rest of them that Erebor needs higher taxes. Uncle would never allow it, of course, but the last thing we need is to spend the next five years having the argument over and over again because some of them are persuaded.’

‘Go,’ Bofur commanded. ‘Fight your extremely boring but worthy fight.’

‘You are endlessly charming,’ Fíli told him dryly.

‘Not trying to charm you,’ Bofur pointed out. ‘What would be the point of that? I might have to keep you.’

‘I’d leave while you’re ahead if I were you,’ Sigrid advised Fíli. ‘It only goes downhill from here.’

‘I think _you_ are a wise woman,’ Fíli replied, handing her son back to her after giving him a big hug, then pressing a kiss to her cheek, ‘and _I_ am going to make my escape. You’ll be at the hall for dinner?’

‘Of course,’ Sigrid agreed. ‘Food we don’t have to cook. There is no downside to that when you have a baby.’

‘Especially when it’s Bombur doing the cooking,’ Bofur chimed in, always ready to praise his brother’s talents.

‘It’s Bombur’s night?’ Fíli asked quickly. When Bofur nodded, the Prince grinned widely. ‘Then I will most definitely see you tonight!’ With that, he showed himself out.

‘Your uncle,’ Bofur told their son with a pretence of seriousness, ‘would be receiving daily proposals of marriage if your Aunt Nula hadn’t already got him.’

‘It’s why I had to make do with you instead,’ Sigrid teased. ‘Bombur was already taken.’

Bofur pretended to have been stabbed in the heart. Segur laughed again, then grabbed for the cord of Bofur’s hat as he came to sit on the arm of Sigrid’s chair. Which did raise one question…

‘Why are you wearing the hat indoors?’ she queried, tilting her head to one side as she gazed at him in confusion. ‘Do we have a leak I don’t know about?’

‘Had a message from the mines,’ Bofur informed her. ‘Small collapse in one of the far passages. Nothing serious, everyone got out, but they want me to take a look and make sure no more of it’s likely to come down before they send anyone back in for the gear. I was just waiting for you to come and take charge of this one.’

Sigrid met his eyes, a worried frown on her face. Bofur’s own expression was briefly grave as he nodded an answer to her unspoken question. Yes, it was one of the tunnels that a newly promoted team leader had insisted on working in, despite Bifur’s arguments that the instability in the area outweighed the potential gains. Yes, people had been hurt. Not badly – Sigrid could tell that just from the fact Bofur was still here, he’d have interrupted her meeting with Fíli if it was bad – but any injuries were too many when they came from nothing but stubbornness.

‘Someone’s going to be demoted, then?’ she asked, though it was barely a question.

‘Aye,’ Bofur confirmed. ‘I’m going to talk to Balin about it. That idiot’s had two months to lose the swollen head he got from being promoted. It’s not happening, so back down he goes. Shows how much I know. I should never have made him team leader.’

‘He was good at what he did,’ Sigrid said gently, ‘and he always listened to the experts before. You couldn’t know he’d be like this.’ Bofur sighed and leaned his head against hers, quiet for a moment before he spoke again, more cheerfully this time.

‘No matter,’ he announced. As he said it he got to his feet and walked to the door to get his boots. Sigrid rose and followed him, rocking Segur slightly as she went. Their son was drooping a little, it was almost time for an afternoon nap, and the movement would speed him on his way. ‘Bifur and I’ll deal with it. You had any more trouble with your least-favourite thorn?’ Sigrid snorted, one of the many mannerisms that certain members of her father’s court considered _unladylike_.

‘Tandar?’ she checked. Bofur nodded. ‘More muttering under his breath yesterday, just quiet enough that he could claim I’d misheard him. Nothing notable, but every bit of rope…’

‘Mmm, he’s making himself a lovely noose,’ Bofur opined. ‘A couple of those nasty little comments is one thing, but by the time you’ve finally had enough there’ll be plenty of people who can say honestly that he’s been trying to undermine you for weeks. He’s not _that_ quiet.’

‘No, he’s not,’ Sigrid said, suddenly smiling slightly. That had reminded her of a conversation she’d been meaning to have with her husband since just before she went out on patrol. ‘In fact, he was loud enough that someone reported him to Dwalin the other day. Dwalin was all fired up to have Tandar thrown out of the guard for disrespect, actually, despite my argument that I was waiting until he did something no one could dispute. Then, the next day, Dwalin had suddenly changed his mind. I don’t suppose you’d know anything about that, would you?’

‘Should I?’ Bofur said, innocently, one hand reaching behind him for the doorknob. Sigrid could practically see his thoughts written upon the air, that it was better to have his escape ready just in case this conversation went badly.

‘Well, I did see you talking to him the next morning,’ Sigrid said calmly, enjoying the nervous look Bofur got at her reasonable tone. ‘And then, even though he’d been threatening to deal with the situation immediately, Dwalin did nothing about it all. In fact, a few minutes before I went out on patrol, he abruptly announced that I should do whatever I thought was best. It seemed odd.’

Sigrid let the words hang in the air for a moment, watching Bofur carefully, then took pity on him.

‘I’m not angry, Bofur,’ she reassured her husband. ‘I’m just curious about what you said to him.’

‘Oh, that’s alright then,’ Bofur sighed with relief, nervousness leaving as quickly as it had come. ‘Thought you might think I was interfering.’

‘You _were_ interfering,’ Sigrid pointed out, ‘but I’m allowing you the benefit of the doubt, given the result.’

‘I just reminded him that you were all grown up now, darlin’. I can understand him being furious with someone talking about you like Tandar is - I am, too – but you haven’t needed us to fight your battles for a long time now. Dwalin forgot for a moment, that’s all. He saw sense quickly enough, once he realised how Tandar would be able to twist it if one of us got involved on your behalf.’

The conversation paused briefly as Segur made a little snuffling noise that had them both grinning. Then Sigrid turned her grin on Bofur, leaning down to kiss him soundly.

‘That’s one of my favourite things about you,’ she told him with great sincerity. ‘The way you figure out which battles I need you to fight for me and which I don’t.’

‘Aye, well, I’ve got to make sure I do it properly, haven’t I?’ Bofur said with apparent solemnity. ‘Got to make sure I’m good enough for you, or I’ll have half of Middle Earth out for my head soon enough.’

‘A quarter, maybe,’ Sigrid responded, still smiling fondly. ‘Go on, then. That’s the serious conversation done for the month. Go and make sure the Mountain’s not going to crash down around our ears, and when you’re done we can go back to being silly again for another few weeks.’

‘Sounds perfect to me,’ Bofur assured her. ‘I’ll not be long.’ They shared another quick kiss, then Bofur slipped out of the front door quietly. Sigrid looked down at Segur again, pressed a kiss to the top of his well-ruffled hair, and went in search of his cot.

Sometimes married life really was all that people had told her it would be.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed - if you did, please let me know! 
> 
> I'm also open to prompt ideas if anyone should happen to have any. There's currently one more one-shot I promised a reader ages ago and then I'll just be seeing if anything comes to me.


End file.
